Samson Denied his Wife

1But it came to pass after a while, in the time of wheat-harvest, that Samson visited his wife with a kid; and he said, I will go in to my wife into the chamber. But her father would not suffer him to go in. 2And her father said, I verily thought that thou hadst utterly hated her; therefore I gave her to thy companion: is not her younger sister fairer than she? take her, I pray thee, instead of her.

Samson Defeats the Philistines

3And Samson said concerning them, Now shall I be more blameless than the Philistines, though I do them a displeasure. 4And Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, and took fire-brands, and turned tail to tail, and put a fire-brand in the midst between two tails. 5And when he had set the brands on fire, he let them go into the standing corn of the Philistines, and burnt up both the shocks and also the standing corn, with the vineyards and olives. 6Then the Philistines said, Who hath done this? And they answered, Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because he had taken his wife, and given her to his companion. And the Philistines came up, and burnt her and her father with fire. 7And Samson said to them, Though ye have done this, yet will I be avenged of you, and after that I will cease. 8And he smote them hip and thigh with a great slaughter. And he went down and dwelt in the top of the rock Etam.

9Then the Philistines went up, and encamped in Judah, and spread themselves in Lehi. 10And the men of Judah said, Why have ye come up against us? And they answered, We have come to bind Samson, to do to him as he hath done to us. 11Then three thousand men of Judah went to the top of the rock Etam, and said to Samson, Knowest thou not that the Philistines are rulers over us? what is this that thou hast done to us? And he said to them, As they did to me, so have I done to them. 12And they said to him, We have come down to bind thee, that we may deliver thee into the hand of the Philistines. And Samson said to them, Swear to me, that ye will not fall upon me yourselves. 13And they spoke to him, saying, No; but we will bind thee fast, and deliver thee into their hand: but surely we will not kill thee. And they bound him with two new cords, and brought him up from the rock.

14And when he came to Lehi, the Philistines shouted against him: and the Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon him, and the cords that were upon his arms became as flax that was burnt with fire, and his bands loosed from off his the hands. 15And he found a fresh jaw-bone of an ass, and put forth his hand, and took it, and slew a thousand men with it.

16And Samson said, With the jaw-bone of an ass, heaps upon heaps, with the jaw of an ass have I slain a thousand men.

17And it came to pass when he had made an end of speaking, that he cast away the jaw-bone out of his hand, and called that place Ramath-lehi. 18And he was very thirsty, and called on the LORD, and said, Thou hast given this great deliverance into the hand of thy servant: and now shall I die by thirst, and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised? 19But God cleaved a hollow place that was in the jaw, and there came water out of it; and when he had drank, his spirit came again, and he revived. Wherefore he called the name of it En-hakkore, which is in Lehi to this day. 20And he judged Israel, in the days of the Philistines, twenty years.